I return, my dear Reader, after a month-full of absences to pen a belated wintry tribute to the year gone by: 2006, my Annus Mirabilis. For truly, a lot of wonderful things happened: I got bail; Mummy got elected to the Assembly from Kota by an unprecedentedly huge margin; the High Court finally sorted out Papa’s caste-case. And somewhere along the way, I fell desperately and hopelessly in Love. By most estimates, the Tide has begun to turn: our devoted and ever-observant Bai, very recently, confided to my mother thus: “the sheer quantity of dry-fruit and mithai (sweetmeat) gift-packets this holiday-season far outnumbers those we use to get when sahab (my father) was chief minister.” That- “the gift-packets barometer”- incidentally remains by far, the single most definitive instrument for measurement of a person’s social position in contemporary India that I’ve come across.

For what it’s worth, I wasn’t too busy being happy: admittedly, the explanation for my procrastinated absences (notice: the plural) from this Page- Blog- is much more simple: let’s call it WRITER’S BLOCK. Ever since Kota, I’ve been meaning to write something- anything- but for some inexplicable reason(s)- post-electoral fatigue; exuberance at unexpected victory; the fact that I now make speeches in Chhattisgarhi, the language of my forefathers; travelling to villages simmering with a variety of discontents; a heart caught in the throes of unrequited L?- Words, those constant companions-cum-therapists ever-ready to soothe my ailing, aching Soul, just failed to come to me. And when they did, I didn’t quite know how to hold them together, in phrases, sentences, article, dispatches, so that they might make sense. Thankfully, that sort of thing happens very rarely in my life.

Now that “AJ is back”, you can expect to hear a lot more from me through these pages. Till then, here’s wishing all of you a Splendid New Year.